Henry Wadsworth Longfellow Quotes

488 Sourced Quotes

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon Like a magician extended his golden want o'er the landscape; Trinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
No action, whether foul or fair, Is ever done, but it leaves somewhere A record, written by fingers ghostly, As a blessing or a curse, and mostly In the greater weakness or greater strength Of the acts which follow it.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The low desire, the base design
That makes another's virtues less.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
But the good deed, through the ages Living in historic pages, Brighter grows and gleams immortal, Unconsumed by moth or rust.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You call them thieves and pillagers; but know, They are the winged wardens of yours farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms...

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Labor with what zeal we will, Something still remains undone, Something uncompleted still Waits the rising of the sun.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
By unseen hands uplifted in the light Of sunset, yonder solitary cloud Floats, with its white apparel blown abroad, And wafted up to heaven.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The bells themselves are the best of preachers, Their brazen lips are learned teachers, From their pulpits of stone, in the upper air, Sounding aloft, without crack or flaw, Shriller than trumpets under the Law, Now a sermon and now a prayer.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All the means of action - the shapeless masses - the materials - lie everywhere about us. What we need is the celestial fire to change the flint into the transparent crystal, bright and clear. That fire is genius.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Decide not rashly. The decision made
Can never be recalled. The gods implore not,
Plead not, solicit not; they only offer
Choice and occasion, which once being passed
Return no more. Dost thou accept the gift?

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The motives and purposes of authors are not always so pure and high, as, in the enthusiasm of youth, we sometimes imagine. To many the trumpet of fame is nothing but a tin horn to call them home, like laborers from, the field, at dinner-time, and they think themselves lucky to get the dinner.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Each day is a branch of the Tree of Life laden heavily with fruit. If we lie down lazily beneath it, we may starve; but if we shake the branches, some of the fruit will fall for us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Two ways the rivers Leap down to different seas, and as they roll Grow deep and still, and their majestic presence Becomes a benefaction to the towns They visit, wandering silently among them, Like patriarchs old among their shining tents.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You behold in me Only a traveling Physician; One of the few who have a mission To cure incurable diseases, Or those that are called so.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For the structure that we raise,
Time is with materials filled;
Our to-days and yesterdays
Are the blocks with which we build.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The gentle wind, a sweet and passionate wooer, Kisses the blushing leaf.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Love is the root of creation; God's essence; worlds without number Lie in his bosom like children; he made them for this purpose only. Only to love and to be loved again.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches! Green not alone in summer time, But in the winter's frost and rime! O hemlock-tree! O hemlock-tree! how faithful are thy branches!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The picture that approaches sculpture nearest Is the best picture.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The happy should not insist too much upon their happiness in the presence of the unhappy.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
For next to being a great poet is the power of understanding one.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Perhaps the greatest lesson which the lives of literary men teach us is told in a single word* Wait!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
When we walk towards the sun of Truth, all shadows are cast behind us.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Welcome, Disappointment! Thy hand is cold and hard, but it is the hand of a friend. Thy voice is stern and harsh, but it is the voice of a friend. Oh, there is something sublime in calm endurance, something sublime in the resolute, fixed purpose of suffering without complaining, which makes disappointment oftentimes better than success!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
All sense of hearing and of sight enfold in the serene delight and quietude of sleep.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Men should soon make up their minds to be forgotten, and look about them, or within them, for some higher motive in what they do than the approbation of men, which is fame, namely, their duty; that they should be constantly and quietly at work, each in his sphere, regardless of effects, and leaving their fame to take care of itself.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Would'st thou, — so the helmsman answered, Learn the secret of the sea? Only those who brave its dangers Comprehend its mystery!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Beneath me flows the Rhine, and like the stream of Time, it flows amid the ruins of the Past.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
There's not a ship that sails the ocean, But every climate, every soil, Must bring its tribute, great or small, And help to build the wooden wall!

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
O flower-de-luce, bloom on, and let the river Linger to kiss thy feet! 0 flower of song, bloom on, and make forever The world more fair and sweet.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow